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NEGATION - Coggle Diagram
NEGATION
Latin
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however, instances of bipartite negative structures such as NĒ + QUIDEM
Meillet highlights that Latin non itself is a fusion of an (earlier) negative marker NE and reinforcer OENUM.
examples
Item non mi d[e] dit aes (15)
‘not so much did he give me money’ (Letters of Claudius Terntianus 471)
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Old French
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reinforcers
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have semantic meaning, but become grammaticalised towards the end of this period
- goutte
- pas - used with verbs of motion
- miette - 'crumb'
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Middle French
During the Middle French period, we see non decline and ne increasingly accompanied by postverbal negative elements (Marchello-Nizia 1979)
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deletion of the final schwa in ne only sets in at the end of the MF period when reinforcement is well established ∴ not cause and effect (RE Jesperson)
Queste del Saint Graal
Il n’est riens donc je ne vos conseil a mon pooir
‘He is nothing, therefore I will not advise you in my power.’
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Modern French
Armstrong & Smith (2002:28) note that there are specific factors which condition retention or deletion
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Fixed experessions: e..g je sais pas, c'est pas
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Canadian French
deletion near systematic in Poplack and St Amand's (2007) study of folklore recordings from 19th c. quebec
A recent study by van Compernolle (2010) of Montreal French online chatroom transcripts suggests deletion is at 94.9%, with ne only used to be emphatic
Ashby 1981
the loss of the negative particle ne, in 37 speakers from two age strata (14-21 and 51-64)
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a much higher rate in the younger age group than the older one. Ashby takes this to mean that the deletion of ne is now a rapidly accelerating change whereas previously it was a stable sociolinguistic variant